Last week, deadly ISIS-inspired attacks occurred in France, Tunisia and Kuwait, claiming dozens of lives and adding further to already high social hostilities involving religion in the countries.

Recent Pew Research reports have documented worrying trends of increasing religious hostilities involving religion, with religion-related terrorism being a potential trigger in governments imposing greater restrictions on religion or belief more generally. Specifically, Pew found that countries where religion-related terror occurs have, on average, more than double the level of government restrictions on religious freedom as countries where no terror has occurred.

Ironically, research - as in The Price of Freedom Denied - has shown that this cycle of violence leading to general restrictions may have the effect of both lowering religious freedom and increasing violence rather than decreasing it because it may limit the activities of peaceful faith solutions while adding additional grievances by stigmatizing religion.

Terror RisingAccording to a statistical annex prepared by the University of Maryland for the recently released annual report on terrorism by the U.S. State Department and cited during the report's release (though not included in the report), "the number of terrorist attacks in 2014 increased 35 percent, and total fatalities increased 81 percent compared to 2013, largely due to activity in Iraq, Afghanistan and Nigeria."During the special briefing at the release by Tina S. Kaidanow, Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism, stated that "more than 60 percent of all attacks took place in five countries: Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Nigeria. And 78 percent of all fatalities due to terrorist attacks also took place in five countries: Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria. The increase in total fatalities was in part a result of certain attacks that were exceptionally lethal. In 2014 there were 20 attacks that killed more than a hundred people, compared to only two such attacks in 2013."Note, while the State Department cited these statistics compiled by the University of Maryland, they are not a U.S. State Department product and the lack full context found in the larger report. Kaidanow noted in particular that aggregate totals or numbers of attacks are not really a particularly useful metric for measuring the aims of the extremist groups or of our progress in preventing or countering those activities.

State Department Report & 2014 TrendsComments below are from a special briefing by Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism Tina S. Kaidanow, Washington, DC June 19, 2015

"Despite significant blows to al-Qaida’s leadership, weak or failed governance continued to provide an enabling environment for the emergence of extremist radicalism and violence, notably in Yemen, in Syria, Libya, Nigeria, and Iraq. We’re deeply concerned about the continued evolution of the Islamic State of the Iraq in the Levant, ISIL; the emergence of self-proclaimed ISIL affiliates in Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, and elsewhere; and tens of thousands of foreign terrorist fighters who are exacerbating the violence in the Middle East, imposing a continued threat to their own home countries.The ongoing civil war in Syria has been a spur to many of the worldwide terrorism events that we have witnessed. Since the report covers only calendar year 2014, it notes that the overall flow of foreign terrorist fighter travel to Syria was estimated at more than 16,000 foreign terrorist fighters from over 90 countries as of late December, which is a number that exceeds any similar flow of foreign terrorist fighters traveling to other countries in the last 20 years.Many of the foreign terrorist fighters joined ISIL, which has seized contiguous territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria. Iraqi forces and the Counter-ISIL Coalition have dealt significant blows to ISIL, but it continues to control substantial territory.As with many other terrorist groups worldwide, ISIL has brutally repressed the communities under its control and used ruthless methods of violence such as beheadings and crucifixions. Uniquely, however, it demonstrates a particular skill in employing new media tools to display its brutality both as a means to shock and to terrorize, but equally to propagandize and to attract new recruits.Boko Haram shares with ISIL a penchant for the use of these brutal tactics, which include stonings, indiscriminate mass casualty attacks, and systematic oppression of women and girls, including enslavement, torture, and rape.Though AQ central leadership has indeed been weakened, the organization continues to serve as a focal point of inspiration for a worldwide network of affiliated groups, including al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, a longstanding threat to Yemen, the region, and the United States; al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM; al-Nusrah Front; and al-Shabaab in East Africa.We saw a rise in lone offender attacks, including in Ottawa and Quebec in October and Sydney in December of 2014. In many cases, it was difficult to assess whether these attacks were directed or inspired by ISIL or AQ and its affiliates. These attacks may presage a new area in which centralized leadership of a terrorist organization matters less, group identity is more fluid, and violent extremist narratives focus on a wider range of alleged grievances and enemies.Enhanced border security measures among Western states since 9/11 have increased the difficulty for known or suspected terrorists to travel internationally. Therefore, groups like AQ and ISIL encourage lone actors residing in the West to carry out attacks on their behalf.ISIL and AQ affiliates, including al-Nusrah Front, continue to use kidnapping for ransom operations, profits from the sales of looted antiquities, and other criminal activities to raise funds for operational purposes. Much of ISIL’s funding, unlike the resources utilized by AQ and AQ-type organizations, do not come from external donations, but was internally gathered in Iraq and Syria. ISIL earned up to several million dollars per month through its various extortion networks, in criminal activity in the territory where it operated, including through oil smuggling. Some progress was made in 2014 in constraining ISIL’s ability to earn money from the sale of smuggled oil as a result of the anti-ISIL coalition airstrikes that were conducted on ISIL-operated oil refineries. But the oil trade was not fully eradicated.ISIL and AQ were not the only serious threats that confronted the United States and its allies. Iran continued to sponsor terrorist groups around the world, principally through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, the IRGC-QF – Quds. These groups included Lebanese Hizballah, several Iraqi Shia militant groups, Hamas, and the Palestine-Islamic Jihad. Addressing this evolving set of terrorist threats and the need to undertake efforts that span the range from security to rule of law to efficacy of governance and pushing back on terrorist messaging in order to effectively combat the growth of these emerging violent extremist groups requires an expanded approach to our counterterrorism engagement."

The European Parliament Intergroup on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Religious Tolerance (EP Intergroup on FoRB & RT) presented its first Annual Report on the 'State of Freedom of Religion or Belief' at an event hosted by the Intergroup in collaboration with United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Speakers included the Chairs of the EP Intergroup on FoRB & RT and USCIRF as well as the Director of Human Rights at the European External Action Service (EEAS). Below is the executive summary followed by a link to the report.

The right to freedom of religion or belief is enshrined in many global and regional rights instruments as well as, to varying degrees, in the constitutions or basic laws of most countries. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) defines FoRB as follows: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

FoRB offers equal protection to people of all faiths and beliefs. States are bound by international and human rights law to uphold Article 18 of the UDHR and also of the ICCPR if they have signed and ratified it. A fundamental characteristic of both is the principle of non-discrimination. The principle of non-discrimination emphasises the fact that individuals are entitled to full enjoyment of human rights irrespective of their religion or belief. There the state has a primary responsibility to respect, protect and promote rights of all individuals. Although international and human rights law is primarily concerned with the responsibility a state has to its citizens, the state also has a duty to make sure that non-state actors are prosecuted for crimes they commit.

It is clear, however, that this right is increasingly under attack through the actions of states, non-state actors or both. Pew Forum concludes in a report published in February 2015 that no less than three quarters of the world’s population lives in countries with high or very high restrictions on religion, with this proportion trending upwards. Open Doors (OD) which publishes annual rankings of countries found that among religious group worldwide Christians are persecuted the most. The organisation also documented evidence of year-on-year increasing discrimination and persecution. The Freedom of Thought report from the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) found that "non-religious people are being targeted by hate campaigns around the world" and suggests an increase in violence.

More worrying concerns are that some countries continue to deny the universality of FoRB. In fact, in recent years an increasing number of countries seem to identify with one specific religion or belief, in spite of inclusive language enshrined in their legislation. This trend is particularly visible in parts of Asia, Africa and Easter (non-EU) Europe. A second concern is the rise of non-state actors such as Islamic extremist groups with territorial ambitions such as Boko Haram and ISIL/Da'esh. Some of these groups have boldly used the void left by retreating central government in failed states or are indeed now among the main reasons why some states, or parts of states, "fail".

In this context of general deterioration, it took the European Union quite long to come up with its Guidelines on the promotion and protection of Freedom of Religion or Belief (EU Guidelines on FoRB). However, the Guidelines are a significant milestone and show awareness within the EU that:

FoRB is an important right that deserves protection besides for example labour rights, women's rights or media freedom;

FoRB violations are increasing in many regions of the world, including sometimes as part of campaigns to intimidate or drive out certain faith or belief groups;

The promotion and protection of FoRB is an important foreign policy objective and its correlates with other human rights as the well-functioning of a democracy and the rule of law.

The Guidelines acknowledge that the “free exercise [of FoRB] directly contributes to democracy, development, rule of law, peace and stability.” However the ongoing implementation of the Guidelines and the hesitant deployment of other policy tools make for an interesting dynamic, which this report will comment on.

The New York Times reports that new Chinese security laws elevate the party and stifle dissent in a new tougher line that Mao would approve of. The new law, released in draft form this month, says security must be maintained “to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Of course, the devil's in the details. But given a rash of recent government actions to impose its supremacy over culture, in particular, religion, China's economic success is under threat.

The study's findings - published in this summer's edition of The Review of Faith & International Affairs - will be surprising to the half of China’s population for whom religion is not a significant part of life. To the other half, they will make some sense, but still may be surprising. The reason is twofold. First, those who do not practice religion often tend to have their closest personal and social connections with people like themselves. Accordingly, people who do not encounter religion on a day-to-day basis may consider it to be an insignificant factor. Second, even those practicing a faith may not be aware of the connections between faith, freedom, and business because there has been very little research looking at the connections.

New research, however, finds close and logical connections between faith, freedom, and business., which I review in the article. First, I look specifically at the unrecognized role the religions of Chinese people play in creating a workforce ready for success. This includes the role of a relative, but incomplete, rise in religious freedom since the time of the Cultural Revolution on the 1960s and 1970s, when all faiths were outlawed and suppressed. It also includes a surprising finding from recent research that Chinese Christianity may be a special source of economic growth.

Second, I examine how the freedom to have faith is an unrecognized power to the economy, including an ally in the fight against corruption. Next, I look at a by-product of China’s gradual move to religious freedom—religious diversity— and how this is an added source of innovation for economic growth not only in China, but also in Asia more generally. Indeed, China is one of the world’s most religious and religiously diverse countries, and Asia is the world’s most religiously diverse region.

I then take up the most sensitive question of whether China should further deregulate religious freedom—including in light of recent violence in the western province of Xinjiang—and what that means for sustaining China’s economic growth. Throughout the article, I stress that the issues faced by China are not exclusive to it but are part of a growing global set of issues faced by all nations.

I conclude with the observation: "Perhaps just as China has radically deregulated its economy with successful outcomes, further deregulation of religion may be one way to help keep China's economic miracle alive."